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City age and city size

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  • Giesen, Kristian
  • Suedekum, Jens

Abstract

Using novel data on the foundation dates of more than 10,000 American Census places, we show that older cities in the US tend to be larger than younger ones. To take this nexus between city age and city size into account, we introduce endogenous city creation into a dynamic economic model of an urban system. Our model predicts a pattern of age-dependent urban growth that is in line with recently established empirical evidence. The size distribution that emerges in our economy delivers a close fit to different types of US data and it outperforms other suggested parametrizations. This evidence can resolve several debates and build a bridge between different views in the literature on city size distributions.

Suggested Citation

  • Giesen, Kristian & Suedekum, Jens, 2014. "City age and city size," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 193-208.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:71:y:2014:i:c:p:193-208
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2014.07.006
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    Cited by:

    1. Rafael González‐Val, 2019. "Historical urban growth in Europe (1300–1800)," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(2), pages 1115-1136, April.
    2. Miguel Puente-Ajovín & Arturo Ramos, 2015. "On the parametric description of the French, German, Italian and Spanish city size distributions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(2), pages 489-509, March.
    3. Sun, Xiangdong & Yuan, Ouyang & Xu, Zhao & Yin, Yanhui & Liu, Qian & Wu, Ling, 2021. "Did Zipf's Law hold for Chinese cities and why? Evidence from multi-source data," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    4. Alexander S. Skorobogatov, 2016. "Spatial Equilibrium Approach to the Analysis of Income Differentials Across Russian Cities," HSE Working papers WP BRP 149/EC/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    5. Schmidheiny, Kurt & Suedekum, Jens, 2015. "The pan-European population distribution across consistently defined functional urban areas," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 10-13.
    6. Rafael González-Val, 2021. "The Spanish spatial city size distribution," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 48(6), pages 1609-1631, July.
    7. Beare, Brendan K & Toda, Alexis Akira, 2020. "On the emergence of a power law in the distribution of COVID-19 cases," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt9k5027d0, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    8. Skorobogatov, Alexander S., 2018. "Why do newer cities promise higher wages in Russia?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 16-34.
    9. Sebastian Scheuer & Dagmar Haase & Martin Volk, 2016. "On the Nexus of the Spatial Dynamics of Global Urbanization and the Age of the City," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-20, August.
    10. Arturo Ramos, 2017. "Are the log-growth rates of city sizes distributed normally? Empirical evidence for the USA," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 1109-1123, November.
    11. Desmet, Klaus & Rappaport, Jordan, 2017. "The settlement of the United States, 1800–2000: The long transition towards Gibrat’s law," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 50-68.
    12. Devadoss, Stephen & Luckstead, Jeff, 2015. "Growth process of U.S. small cities," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 12-14.
    13. Antonio Accetturo & Michele Cascarano & Guido de Blasio, 2019. "Dynamics of urban growth: Italy, 1951–2011," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 36(2), pages 373-398, July.
    14. Sánchez-Vidal, María & González-Val, Rafael & Viladecans-Marsal, Elisabet, 2014. "Sequential city growth in the US: Does age matter?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 29-37.
    15. Ramos, Arturo, 2015. "Are the log-growth rates of city sizes normally distributed? Empirical evidence for the US," MPRA Paper 65584, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Brendan K. Beare & Alexis Akira Toda, 2022. "Determination of Pareto Exponents in Economic Models Driven by Markov Multiplicative Processes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(4), pages 1811-1833, July.
    17. Massing, Till & Puente-Ajovín, Miguel & Ramos, Arturo, 2020. "On the parametric description of log-growth rates of cities’ sizes of four European countries and the USA," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 551(C).
    18. Hanlon, W.Walker & Heblich, Stephan, 2022. "History and urban economics," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    19. Ramos, Arturo & Sanz-Gracia, Fernando, 2015. "US city size distribution revisited: Theory and empirical evidence," MPRA Paper 64051, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Ignacio Rosal, 2018. "Power laws in EU country exports," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 45(2), pages 311-337, May.
    21. Ramos, Arturo & Sanz-Gracia, Fernando & González-Val, Rafael, 2013. "A new framework for the US city size distribution: Empirical evidence and theory," MPRA Paper 52190, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Ramos, Arturo, 2015. "Log-growth distributions of US city sizes and non-Lévy processes," MPRA Paper 66561, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    23. Duc A. Nguyen & Steven Brakman & Harry Garretsen & Tristan Kohl, 2023. "What’s in a Name? Initial Geography and German Urban Development," CESifo Working Paper Series 10435, CESifo.
    24. Arturo, Ramos, 2019. "Have the log-population processes stationary and independent increments? Empirical evidence for Italy, Spain and the USA along more than a century," MPRA Paper 93562, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Zipf׳s law; Gibrat׳s law; City size distributions; City age; Urban growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

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